Twenty-one-year-old journalist Pierre Sautreuil has just arrived in Ukraine to cover the conflict in the Donbas, is intrigued by fifty-eight-year-old Yuri, who's just decided to take refuge on the Luhansk front.
Soon the apprentice reporter and the mercenary on the comeback trail strike up a rapport on the basis of awkward confessions. As shelling devastates the frozen steppes, Pierre discovers and then recounts to us the improbable story a man who was prepared to do anything, even the most unspeakable acts, to restore Russia to its former glory and fulfil his own ambitions.